CCP has blacklisted four people from future EVE fanfests following the defacement of a monument to EVE Online.

The individuals in question were involved in an attempt on May 4th to scratch the name of a fellow player off of a recently revealed sculpture that the developer had commissioned to give thanks to and immortalize its player base. The banned players followed up their vandalism with Tweets sharing pictures of the act and bragging about what they’d done.

“@Xenuria found your name and lost it again. #tweetfleet #eveonline #evefanfest You’re welcome, everyone in eve!,” said Twitter user Gaius Homerson.

CCP was understandably angry about the incident, stating that it would “not tolerate this” and vowing to treat the incident “as a criminal offense.” CCP revealed today that its pursuit had finally yielded results.

“With the assistance of a number of members of the community, including some of those who were involved with the incident and other members of their own alliance, we’ve been able to make headway in identifying those responsible,” said CCP Falcon in a posting in the EVE Online forums. “Three individuals have been permanently removed from the EVE Community. A total of 7 EVE Online accounts, and 1 DUST 514 account belonging to them have been permanently banned. Another individual who was indirectly involved in the vandalism has received a 6 month ban from EVE Online on their sole registered account. The four individuals involved are also blacklisted permanently from attending future Fanfest events.”

The monument itself was unveiled on April 30th and was engraved with the names of every active EVE Online player that joined the game prior to March 1st, 2014. The monument was designed and built and by sculptor Siguror Guomundsson and resides in the downtown area of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik.

If there’s one word to describe Dust 514, it’s “flawed.” The console-based MMO shooter from EVE Online creator CCP has potential – thanks to the depth of its character customization and inherent connection to EVE Online – but it left open beta in a rather ignoble state. Weapon handling is awkward, there are plenty of performance issues, it doesn’t look very good, and the gear balance is heavily weighted towards the high end. CCP made it very clear during my interview with them at E3, though, that the poor reception at launch will not deter them. Dust 514 is in for the long haul, just like EVE.

Dust 514 is a free-to-play first-person shooter for the PS3 set in the EVE universe. All matches take place on the same shard as EVE Online, and there are things players can do in each game to interact with each other (such as orbital bombardments). It plays much like a sci-fi version of Battlefield, with an emphasis on combined arms combat and the capturing of points to drain enemies tickets (or, in Dust’s case, the enemy’s dropship shields). There is an overarching metagame revolving around capturing and controlling planetary “districts,” although this is restricted only to temperate planets in a specific region at the moment. Dust has got a slick art style and the basic mechanics are fine, but the granular details need some work before it can hope to compete with more polished shooters.

The first thing that CCP made absolutely clear is that Dust 514 has come a long way, even if it has a long way to go yet. The visuals have been drastically improved and optimized over previous iterations of the engine, and balance is slowly reaching an equilibrium between time investment and strength gained. Menus and load times have been reworked to give players faster entrance into the game, and loading across the board is much smoother than it was sixth months ago.

This is important to note, because Dust 514 was even worse back in open beta and at launch than it is now. Framerate problems and network issues were common and aggravating. Higher-level characters stomped all over lower-level players effortlessly. There was no metagame to speak of to keep players coming back; all prospective Dust 514 fans had was the endless grind for ISK and skill points. This isn’t to say Dust doesn’t still have problems: Prototype gear and the skill point advantage is still present – despite matchmaking and balancing efforts evening it out a bit – there are plenty of visual and mechanical bugs still floating around, and the community features (especially the EVE Online connection) are not as robust as they could be. Despite these problems, though, Dust 514 is in a better state now. When asked to recommend it, the answer now is a “maybe” instead of a “no way.”

To turn Dust from a “maybe” to a “absolutely,” CCP shared their timeline for Dust’s improvement. They talked about granular changes, mostly, but these changes are ones that need to be made if Dust 514 is to survive.

There are three tiers to the event, with each determined by how much you pay. The top tier is five matches per day. For each day you hit the tier, you get a reward themed around that week’s specific class. The event starts today with fancy shotguns as the reward, so if you want to get those nice items you should log in and get your battle on! If you are curious about which days give which rewards, you can take a look at the event page for updates and information.

CCP is known for naming its major content updates as though they are expansions, and Dust 514 is no exception. The free MMOFPS is getting an expansion – titled “Uprising” – on May 6th. I’m personally pumped for it, as I’m currently dumping a lot of time into shooting my dropsuit-clad foes.

While most of the details about the expansion are scarce, the most important aspect is very clear: Planetary Conquest. CCP has been talking at length about how DUST players will be able to conquer planets and influence EVE Online sovereignty, and Uprising finally brings that feature to the live server. At the moment, there’s no reason to use expensive fits except to pad your score and feel superior, as starter fits work fine. Expect that to change once Uprising launches, though, as nothing gets people jonesing for victory like proper consequences. If you want to check out exactly how Planetary Conquest will work, take a look at the EVE Online wiki page on the concept.

Other details are non-existent. There’s the standard promises of new gear, new maps, new mods, improved UI, and better optimization, but no clear information on what is coming besides the aforementioned Planetary Conquest. Check out the full press release on CCP’s site.

CCP has been touting their connectivity between Dust 514 and EVE Online for a while, and there’s no better way to show off that connectivity than at a gaming convention. In this case, it’s the Battle For Caldari Prime, a massive event spanning both EVE and Dust. While players duke it out in spaceships above the planet, with the end goal of killing a Caldari Navy Titan, mercs fight it out on the ground to bring districts under the control of one faction or the other. For those at PAX East, CCP has PS3s loaded with Dust 514 for attendees to add their power to the war effort.

While developer-run events in EVE have usually had predetermined outcomes, the Battle For Caldari Prime is supposedly going to allow players to determine the result. A leak revealed that one outcome is the Titan – a Leviathan-class capital ship – crashing into the planet, complete with dust clouds, flaming debris, and ship model in the skybox. It’s all very exciting. You can check the progress of the EVE Online battle through the official CCP stream, while TheMittani has a stream covering the Dust side of the conflict. Both are embedded below.

CCP Games has announced that the PS3-exclusive FPS Dust 514 is officially in open beta, free to download and play for all PlayStation 3 gamers. No further character resets are planned, so you don’t have to worry about your progress being wiped.

Dust 514 and EVE Online are linked together in real time across the PC and PlayStation 3, marking the first time two games from different genres and different platforms have been linked together into one massive online gaming experience. EVE players will be able to employ Dust players in ground assaults, and Dust players will be able to fulfill contracts given out by EVE players.

I love the concept of having two drastically different games linked this way; it’s a shame that Dust 514 is not available on PC.

The servers for Dust 514 and EVE Online are finally merging, bringing the two games together as mentioned so long ago. EVE players will soon be able to employ Dust players in ground assaults, using them as the cannon fodder in the fight for total domination. Dust players will be able to fulfill contracts given out by EVE players, bolstering their personal finances and skills as they shoot other people in the face with fancy railguns. This also means that CCP will only be performing one more reset of Dust characters, barring any major catastrophes between now and launch. This doesn’t mean that the game is out of beta, though. PC players are also still left out in the rain, with no official announcement on whether the highly sought-after PC version will ever be considered. I’m just a little bit bitter about that.

Free-to-play MMO DUST 514 is currently in closed beta exclusively on the PlayStation 3, and this weekend, developer CCP is offering players a chance to “Get ISK or Die Trying.” Until Monday, November 26, all LAVs, HAVs, and dropships are 50% off, and CCP is tripling the base ISK reward for standard battles. The better you play, the higher the reward.

CCP has a long term plan for Dust 514, the upcoming console-based F2P shooter set in the Eve Online universe, and it means the game will have a life beyond Playstation 3. “We’ve got a five year road map,” Executive Producer Jonathan Lander said, “with a whole load of things we’d love to put into Dust.”

So what does this mean? That Sony will continue to support PS3 well into the PS4 era? Well, duh, we know they’re doing that. But it also means the game will have a life that extends to other media. “We’re working really, really hard,” Lander said “with Sony right now on PlayStation 3 and just shipping the game on PlayStation 3, that’s where 100 per cent of our focus is. But our intention is this game will continue to run and operate for many, many years.”

He also said that “the whole way that we’re doing our development process is so that we can push out expansions on a regular basis. We’re not going to ship a unit and then in six months it’s off the shelves and people have stopped playing it.” Translation: Expect the game to be available on PS4.

All Access Beta Pass – allows players to participate in every Beta Event, as well as additional play sessions during off weekends

I find it quaint that gamers are willing to pay developers for the privilege of beta testing their games. All right, it’s generally in the form of a pre-order bonus, but nonetheless — developers have found a way to get gamers to pay for their games before they’ve even finished developing them. I’m not saying it’s “evil” of them to do so — I just find it quaint, is all. I’m guilty of pre-ordering a game just to get beta access. Are you?

Gamers often complain about a lack of innovation in the MMO genre — and are justified in doing so, given the number of clones pumped out over the years — but it’s a disappointing admission coming from a developer. In an interview with PC gamer, Matt Firor, the game director for Elder Scrolls Online, said:

“At this point in the evolution of MMOs, every MMO has tried something at one point or another that you’re going to do in your game. There aren’t any more truly innovative features.”

Well, the developers of EVE Online vehemently disagree with that assessment. Speaking with PC Gamer, EVE’s lead game designer Kristoffer Touborg and senior producer Jon Lander expressed their differing opinion.

When asked if he believed there was no more innovation to be had in MMOs, Kristoffer Touborg replied, “No, and if I ever said that, Jon should fire me. No, really.” He went on to say:

“The best MMOs are entirely different. If you want my top five MMOs, they’re all completely different. Other people have tried to replicate it afterwards, but the fact is that the unique MMOs are the ones that are going to survive for a long time. Those are the interesting ones. This genre has so much left.”

Jon Lander weighed in, adding, “I think that if we thought that [there was nothing left to innovate in the MMO genre], I would probably leave the industry, because what’s the point?” He continued:

“I know we’ve got a lot of things up our sleeves which nobody else has done. You can’t force innovation. You can’t think about what the next innovative thing is—you won’t find it. The harder you try and look for it, the more difficult it is to find. You’ve just gotta have a crazy dream and roll with it, see what happens. Sometimes that doesn’t pay off, sometimes it does. But when it does pay off, you get something which is absolute gold dust. I’ve seen it happen here. I’ve seen unique things that have never been seen before in the world, in the history of gaming, that have happened at CCP. I wouldn’t agree with that statement.”

The PS3 exclusive Dust 514 and its tie-in to EVE Online is just one part of the innovation that CCP brings to the table. Do you think the EVE devs are right, or has the genre truly exhausted all possible ideas?

We were a busy lot last week during E3 2012. Not only did we get our hands on hell of games, we also managed to get some pretty great interviews. Like this one captured on video by our own Mitch Saltzman. Mitch got to talk to CCP’s Cameron Payne about Dust 514, CCP’s upcoming MMO set in the Eve Online universe. Enjoy.

If you’re curious about the game, you’re in luck. Today is the first day of closed beta registration, which is available over at the official site. Preference will be given to EVE Online subscribers, and particularly people who attended the CCP Fanfest. Are you a member of one of those two groups? Congrats! If not, cross your fingers.

Have you played the PSN-exclusive DUST 514? If so, you might be interested to know that they’re planning to take it in a cool new direction, even if you’ll have to buy a Vita in order to experience it. CCP’s David Reid hinted as much in a recent episode of the PlayStation Blogcast. During that episode, he talked about the game‘s control options, and said this:

Once you get your hands on the Vita, you can imagine it as a controller for your DUST experience. Suddenly you can think about all the things you can do with that screen.

Our first steps will be cohort apps – the idea of taking a certain amount of the [game’s] admin on the go. But the opportunity is massive in terms of what could be on that screen while you’re playing DUST 514.

So yeah, that’s kind of a big thing, and sounds a lot like the ‘companion app’ talked about in March. No doubt we can expect to see… something at E3, and Game Front will keep you abreast.

GDC 2012 has brought great news for the free-to-play PS3 title, Dust 514, an FPS that will be closely linked with the PC MMO, Eve Online. Sony has removed the barriers that prevented regular content updates and patches from releasing, and CCP hinted at the possibility of a PC release.

In an interview with Joystiq, developer CCP hinted that we may see a PC release for Dust 514. Mouse and keyboard controls are already supported in the PS3 version of the title, and the developers made the tongue-in-cheek remark, “I wonder why we did that.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with Eurogamer, CCP explained how Sony removed PSN policies in order to allow them to properly support Dust 514 with patches and content updates, a process that was previously both costly and lengthy.

CCP said that, thanks to the removal of these barriers:

We have complete ability to service and update the game as much as needed.

Part of the reason [Sony] engaged with us on this is to be able to bring this business model full force to their platforms moving forward.

What does this mean? Dust 514 has successfully blazed a trail for future MMOs on the PlayStation platform.

CCP expressed its confidence in Dust 514′s longevity:

Our whole plan for the game, our whole roadmap, extends out over five years now.